§ Mr. Fauldsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the light of the fact that in the Supply Estimates, 1980–81, provision is made for two payments from the Consolidated Fund, namely Class VIII, Vote 6, subhead D2 and Class X, Vote 32, subhead C2, to be effected to Ministers for the sole exclusive purpose of their making payments therewith to the Board of Inland Revenue, which is statutorily required to credit all such payments to the Consolidated Fund and, in the light of the fact that payments which can only be dealt with in this specific manner must necessarily constitute transactions within the central Government, if he will provide that in subsequent Supply Estimates the conventional symbol of an upright pyramid denoting such transactions be appended to these subheads, in order that Parliament may be more fully apprised of the fact that the accounting events in question form part of a closed cycle internal to Government.
§ Mr. BiffenNo. It would be misleading to do so because the symbol referred to in the question is used to denote items on the Votes which are not classified as direct public expenditure for the purposes of the public expenditure White Paper and national income accounts. Reimbursement of the Inland Revenue represents payments made by the Government for the518W acquisition of pre-eminent objects and heritage property and, therefore, is classified as public expenditure.